Illinois Wholesale Cash Register Corporation
Monitoring Software Rings Up Savings for Point-of-Sale
Terminal Supplier

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The Setting

Illinois Wholesale Cash Register Company, located in the northwest Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, stakes its business claim as a “competitive and reliable supplier to point-of-sale terminal users throughout the world.”

One of Keith Becker’s titles in the company’s fast-paced, multi-tasking environment is VP of Grocery/Supermarket Sales. He’s also Network Administrator.

“It’s a relatively small company, about 75 employees, and some of us wear lots of hats,” said Becker, who runs Windows 2000 Server. Client operating systems are Windows 2000 or XP.

The Challenge

“When I arrived, the company was running Windows 95 on 486/66 PCs, all on an old Novell network,” said Becker. “There was NO security. The company database was right out in the open. You could go to the file, right click on it, and it would be GONE! We’ve come a million miles by way of security.”

Connectivity also was in its infancy.

“When I got here it was four to five dialups,” said Becker. “Ridiculously slow.”

Becker’s presence and the advent of DSL “brought the company online.” It also signaled the onset of associated headaches.

“With access to the Internet and email and I started to see lots of abuse,” said Becker. “Four to five people we knew about, right off the bat. Others, we had no idea.”

Becker mentioned the presence of inappropriate and frivolous Internet and PC activity to company management, but at the time they felt it was not an issue.

“I was told I was paranoid,” said Becker.

Search for a Solution

Becker said he watched employees abuse the system for too long before he again brought his concern to management.

“I told them this stuff was going on,” said Becker. “I said look … you’re having this problem. Your employees are stealing from you because they’re searching the Internet for personal interests … and a lot of other stuff.”

Much of the inappropriate activity was thinly veiled. For example, when employees close windows or minimize programs when others are nearby, such actions rightly can cause suspicion. But Becker said many company employees were so matter-of-fact about their abuse that they would “not even” attempt those simple evasive maneuvers.

“They didn’t even try to hide it,” said Becker. “They downloaded music right in front of me … and opened Internet radios. I told them it was not an acceptable practice and they thumbed their nose at me because I am not the person they report to, and they felt they didn’t have to listen to me. It was all going on under management and the owner’s radar.”

After hearing Becker’s tale of woe, the company’s ISP told him to take a look at SpectorSoft.

“I saw Spector CNE addressed the problems we were having,” said Becker. “At first I thought it was relatively expensive, so I looked at lower cost alternatives but they didn’t have the options and the reporting.”

Discoveries

“We bought the licenses, deployed Spector CNE on a Thursday evening, and we just watched,” said Becker. “Only four people knew about the deployment … the two owners, the VP of Finance, and me.

“In a week, they were beside themselves. Their reaction was beyond words.

“One employee, in an eight-hour shift, spent almost half of a day shopping online … nearly half a day’s productivity wasted.

“We had one instance in which an individual was connecting to a former employer’s server, and moving information back and forth,” said Becker. “The other company just happens to be our competition.”

Not too long after installing Spector CNE, the company had a lawyer draft an employee PC and Internet acceptable use memo, essentially an addendum to the employee handbook.

“We went to the employees and had them sign it,” said Becker. “Apparently they didn’t really understand, because inappropriate activity had gone down, but not near enough as we thought it should.”

Given the situation, Becker and management used Spector CNE to take a closer look and “wrote some folks up.”

	“We had employees working overtime at time-and-a-half wages,” said Becker. “Supposedly they needed to do this because they couldn’t get all of their work done in regular hours. “One Saturday an employee came in and with Spector CNE we could see that all they did was surf the web, pay bills online and balance their checkbook. They worked just one of the four overtime hours charged. “Employees were also constantly playing online games. With Spector CNE, in one day we logged one employee accessing the site 18 to 20 times. As soon as we brought that to light, within a week it was like the tap got shut off.”
	The employee who was shown to be transferring files also was caught trying to circumvent network security. “He was trying to break in, to gain access to our databases,” said Becker. “He was even using things like password generators. I had shut down all of his outgoing ports and he was trying to change the settings. “With the Spector CNE screenshots feature, we had him. It was irrefutable, showing who was logged on when and what was done.” That employee is no longer with the company, and his position has not been filled, at least in part because of the increased productivity of those around him.
	“One employee had 356 porn clips, all files as big as a minute long,” said Becker.
	“People were logging on to Yahoo or Hotmail, thinking they were being stealthy using these web-based email services,” said Becker. “They didn’t know Spector CNE can record it.”
	“People were going to Internet sites getting screen backgrounds and screensavers,” said Becker. “You get a nice image for free but those sites are loaded with spyware. I told them it was inappropriate office behavior, but they ignored me. Then I would get complaints about PCs running slowly, and I would find the systems were full of spyware. Even the simple games were collecting spyware data. “And along with spyware eventually comes SPAM. We monitor emails and we were getting 500, 800, 1000 emails a day and 85 to 90 percent of it was spam. “Since the rollout of Spector CNE, we have drastically cut down on spam.”
	“Here’s an email from our biggest problem,” says Becker at his Spector CNE Viewer. “Two pages personal email, sent via Yahoo account. They must have thought the web-based email is stealth mode but with Spector CNE, we monitor that as well.”
	“I am now looking at our biggest problem Internet surfer,” said Becker, again in front of his Spector CNE Viewer. “The report shows me they were surfing from 12:59 to 1:59 … their lunch hour. It’s amazing … since we installed Spector CNE, they stay within the allotted time.”

Awareness

“When the word about monitoring got out, and that each employee would be held responsible, non-work activities went down about 98 to 99 percent,” said Becker. “They know if they veer off path, there will be consequences.”

Working With Employees

Since instituting activity monitoring with Spector CNE, a PC acceptable use policy is part of the company’s Employee Handbook.

“That was the real wakeup call,” said Becker. “We created an addendum and made them sign it. The edict came down from the VP of Finance … it was not optional … it was sign it or go home without pay.”

	“I have no problem with reasonable personal use at any time of day,” said Becker. “But the excesses needed to stop. Some people are not happy about it but that’s the way it is. This is business … not a place to fool around.”
	“I have told the employees that it is ok to customize their PC desktop and settings but DON’T DOWNLOAD FREEWARE,” said Becker. “I had to change the properties of some of the profiles for some people to keep them from installing programs.”
	“One of the reasons Spector CNE is so successful for us is our network security,” said Becker. “Everyone must be logged on with a unique user profile. If you’ve left your profile logged on and someone else uses the machine to act inappropriately after you have walked away, then that’s your fault.”

Spector CNE: The Software of Choice

“I found that it is an absolutely indispensable tool,” said Becker. “With Spector CNE we can see everything at a moment’s notice. I really like the ability to drill down to the details.”

	“With Spector CNE, we have identified problem employees,” said Becker. “We pinpointed at least six whose actions were absolutely unreasonable.”
	“At first I thought it was expensive for a company of our size,” said Becker. “But IT PAID FOR ITSELF IN A WEEK. Spector CNE is priceless at DOUBLE THE COST. I had no idea what it was going to reveal. “After the first week I compiled a spreadsheet showing a minimum of 40 to 50 hours a week wasted, just on Internet surfing. This report easily projected savings of $50,000 a year or more.”
	“We definitely got our money’s worth,” said Becker. “It’s dollars to doughnuts … a no-brainer. SpectorSoft definitely has a great product … I have recommended Spector CNE to several of my peers.”

“I haven’t started the program in two weeks,” said Becker. “I haven’t had to … everyone’s so freaked out, they won’t try anything.”

For more information about Illinois Wholesale Cash Register Corporation, please visit www.illinoiswholesale.com.

For more information about Spector CNE, please visit www.spectorcne.com … or for more information about SpectorSoft and its other dependable, full-featured PC and Internet Activity Monitoring Software products, please visit www.spectorsoft.com.

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